"You've got another session at the Smithsonian coming up, don't you?" Michael asked from behind him. From the sound of it, he'd continued painting, too.
"Yeah."
"Made any decision about taking up the offer to be a regular consultant?"
They were all after him about the damn museum - Jan, his father, Michael. Bette would join them if she found out about the opportunity. It was the sort of thing that would appeal to her plan-ahead mind. Probably tell him what a step forward this could he. If he were stupid enough to invite the lectures by telling her . . . if he ever had the opportunity to be that stupid, if he ever saw her again.
"No."
"All right, all right, don't bark at me. I'm not the one inconsiderate enough to give you a flattering offer."
"Shut up, Dickinson."
"All right."
That was one of the most annoying things about Michael - he shut up when you told him to shut up. By the time Michael spoke next, Paul had turned the corner to the next wall, and his mood had subsided to low-level hostility.
"So, you're leaving for D.C. a week from Wednesday and will be back the next Sunday?"
"Something like that. How'd you know?"
"The same way I ever know anything about your plans - I hear it from your mother, your sister or your assistant. This time it was Jan. I called her to congratulate her on the baby, and asked when you'd be around."
"Why'd you want to know? You want to come with me? I'm staying with Tris. I'm sure there'd be room for you, too."
He regretted the words instantly. To Paul's knowledge, Michael had never told anyone of his feelings for Tris. Maybe never even admitted them to himself. But Paul knew him very well, and the stillness betrayed him. "I was kidding, Dickinson. Why'd you want to know those dates?"
"I'll have to spend some time up in Chicago. I thought I'd make it coincide with you being in town if I could."
"Before Thanksgiving?" Since the first year of college, both Michael and Grady had spent most of their holidays with the Monroes.
"Yes. I've just decided to make it the first full week of November. Right after you get back from D.C."
Paul twisted around, but Michael remained bent over the woodwork and the back of his head revealed nothing.
"Why?"
Michael kept painting with even, steady strokes.
"I think I should meet this Bette Wharton."
* * *
THE REST OF the weekend passed without another mention of Bette.
Paul wished his mind had been as cooperative.
Driving home Sunday night, he found himself on I-55 instead of his usual meandering back roads, almost as if he were in a hurry. When he swung north on the Tri-State, he justified it as trying a new way back to his apartment. That excuse held until he got off at the Elmhurst exit. In front of Bette's house, he was out of excuses.
Also out of luck, he thought wryly as he considered the dark windows. Either she wasn't home or she was in bed.
Bette in bed . The image appeared instantly, hot and heady behind his eyes. The sheets cool and serene like her voice, but with that promise under them of smooth heat.
He shifted. Too abruptly. His right thigh jammed against the steering wheel. He closed his eyes against the thoughts, then opened them immediately. Closing his eyes made it worse.
She probably wasn't home. Common sense said ten o'clock on a Sunday night was a little early to go to bed, unless . . . unless you weren't alone.
Sense drowned in unfamiliar jealousy. A meeting with a client Thursday night. A Friday morning departure for an out-of-town trip. Could one have extended into the other? Could she be away with someone? Could she . . .?
No. Bette wouldn't have kissed him the way she had if she'd been involved with someone else. The certainty in his gut was stronger than common sense or jealousy. He relaxed.
So she wasn't home yet.
He could leave a note - and say, what?
A snatch of lyric from an old song entered his head, something about the singer's determination to get his girl, and his lips curved. Yup, that was exactly what he wanted to say. But some things were better left unsaid - and simply acted upon.
She might think she'd shaken him loose. She might think he'd forget the laughter and teasing, the kissing and the holding. She might think his ego would forget all that after a week's worth of refusals. She thought wrong.
He turned the key in the ignition and pulled away from the curb in front of Bette's house, still smiling and softly singing to himself.
* * *
BETTE PUSHED OPEN her front door and automatically checked her watch. Nearly eleven o'clock, and she had to unpack and go through files she hadn't finished reviewing this weekend at her brother's house in Minneapolis.
It was a lovely house, and it had been wonderful to see the whole family, with her parents up from Arizona for two weeks to visit their new baby granddaughter - although Bette didn't envy her sister-in-law a fortnight of houseguests on top of a rambunctious two-year-old and a new baby. Still, Claire had seemed to greet the chaos with equanimity.
Bette frowned as she maneuvered her suitcase down the hall and around the corner to her bedroom. Perhaps there would have been less chaos if there'd been less equanimity. It only required some planning, some forethought. She knew that wasn't Claire's strong point, but surely Ron had learned that at home, as she had.
As it was, her decision to rent a car, despite his assurances he could drive her wherever she had to go, had been wise. Otherwise she never would have made the business appointments she'd set up.
She slipped off her coat and rubbed her forehead, pushing against muscles tightened by the frown. The odd thing was, her parents had seemed perfectly content to go with the flow, no matter how undirected. She didn't remember them being that relaxed when she'd been growing up.
She remembered them following the precepts her mother had learned from her own parents - selecting a goal, working toward it step by careful step and never wavering until you reached it. That made for a very organized life. That was how she'd always viewed her parents. Maybe they'd changed in the relaxed atmosphere of her father's early retirement.
She pressed her fingertips harder against the frown. Or could her memories be skewed?
Her hand went from her forehead to her mouth to cover a huge yawn. She should go to bed.
Instead, she returned to the front table where her neighbor had stacked her mail and newspapers. She flipped through quickly, checking each envelope but opening only those she couldn't immediately identify. Nothing. Nothing of interest, anyhow.
Hitting the play button on her answering machine, she listened to the neighbor who'd checked her mail ask her to care for her cat the following weekend. A longtime friend passing through the area called to say hello. Then came two real estate brokers confirming appointments she'd made to interview them. And Darla suggesting she take Monday morning off since her return flight was so late.
The messages ended, followed by silence. Bette sighed deep and long.
She'd been looking for something from Paul Monroe.
The realization didn't startle her; she'd been too busy all weekend trying not to think of him to be surprised that she was thinking about him. But it did irk her.
She'd had relationships with men before. A few. Each as carefully constructed as the rest of her life. She set the parameters; she guided the pace. She knew when the first kiss was coming, and she was prepared to stem or accept greater intimacy, depending on her feelings for the man.
This was something different. There was no predicting Paul Monroe, so there was no preparing for him. Nor for her response. That frightened her.
No, disturbed her. Yes, disturbed was a better word.
She wasn't accustomed to it, she didn't understand it. Not that she was in danger of really falling for the guy. She saw his flaws too clearly. She didn't view him the way, say, her sister-in-law saw Ronald's faults as somehow endearing, or the way her mother took her
father's worst habits in unblinking stride.
But what kind of namby-pamby person spent several days giving a man every clear signal she could to keep things strictly business, then turned around and hoped he'd call or write?
She'd made her decision, and it was the right one. Paul Monroe was not her kind of man.
A tingle along her spine shivered her skin. Her lips parted in memory. Not your kind of man? Oh, really?
All right, in the realm of moonlit kisses on urban beaches or embraces in a darkened car, he was most definitely her kind of man. That made it worse.
The blank red stare of the answering machine reminded her that he'd listened to her signals. He'd taken his moonlight kisses, darkened embraces and their accompanying danger and, for all intents and purposes, disappeared from her life. Other than sending him bills from Top-Line Temporaries, she'd finished with Paul Monroe.
She sighed again, then slapped down the pile of mail and headed along the hall with firm steps.
It was good that he hadn't tried to call or write. In fact, perfect. She'd get her life back to normal. All her spare time this week would be devoted to searching for the right house. She had gotten behind, what with unexpected dinners, unscheduled pumpkin buying and a full week of avoiding the telephone when it rang, then listening for it to ring when it didn't.
She might actually get some work done tomorrow with him out of her life.
* * *
AT FIFTEEN MINUTES before four o'clock the next afternoon, he re-entered Bette's life, if somewhat obliquely, when Janine Taylor walked into her office and announced she would rather quit Top-Line than spend another second as Paul Monroe's temporary assistant.
Chapter Six
* * *
"I CAN'T WORK for that man. Bette, you know I have handled every assignment you've given me. I have worked with demanding bosses, with disorganized bosses, even with sexist bosses. But I can't and won't work for Paul Monroe."
"I don't understand, Janine. You seemed to be getting along fine last week."
Janine shook her head, and if Bette thought there was confusion in the gesture she also recognized rock-solid determination.
That was one characteristic Bette had considered when she'd assigned this particular assistant. She figured it would take someone determined to keep a rein on Paul. She had told herself Janine's plainness had not been a factor.
"From the beginning, I knew he was a little different. After all, look at all those calls to you." Bette felt her cheeks sting. "But today he was . . ." Janine hesitated. "Odd. Very odd."
She seemed to be trying to communicate some greater meaning with her eyes, like the player in a TV quiz game hoping to get her point across without giving away the clue.
Bette stared across the desk at the woman who'd been among her most reliable employees, and tried to reconcile Janine's reaction with the man she'd come to know. Perhaps Paul was not the run-of-the-mill Chicago businessman, but she couldn't imagine him doing anything to elicit such an extreme reaction from a woman, unless it involved the feel of his lips on hers, the rasp of his skin against hers, the draw of his mouth - and then the woman's response would be very different from Janine's.
"Can you tell me what, specifically, he did that made you walk out before the end of your assignment, before, even the end of a day?" She couldn't prevent astonishment from creeping into her voice. The whole thing was so unlike Janine.
"No schedule," Janine jerked out. "He wouldn't give me a schedule, even when I practically begged. And a curator from the Smithsonian - the Smithsonian! - called, and Mr. Monroe said, no, he wouldn't take the call. He didn't feel like talking. He just didn't feel like it. That's what he said to tell them. I didn't, of course, but . . . And he said - He didn't . . ." Her fluttering hands, which seemed to be trying to finish sentences her mouth couldn't accommodate, floated back to her lap and she set her jaw, allowing just one word to escape. "No."
"No?"
"No, I won't try to tell you any more. Because if I tell you, you'll think I'm crazy. Because it's not what he did, it's how he did it."
There seemed to be no answer to that.
"I'm sorry, Bette. I'm truly sorry." Janine stood and slung the strap of her oversize handbag over her shoulder. "If you want to fire me or put me on suspension, I'll understand. But I won't go back there."
The door hadn't even clicked closed behind her before it opened to admit Darla.
"Paul Monroe's on line one," she announced, then gave a sympathetic frown when Bette cursed emphatically.
"You want to take it or shall I?"
"I'll take the call."
"Okay, but you know, I don't think that man's nearly as harmless as he might seem on the surface. I saw his face Thursday when you made me tell him you'd left for an appointment with another client, and that's a stick of dynamite I wouldn't go playing around with too much."
Bette grimaced her understanding. She knew. She knew all too well. Defusing the dynamite was exactly the point.
She had her hand on the phone when she stopped, with something tingling along the nerves of her arm, something ringing cheerfully in her head. Uh-oh. She wanted to take this call. She looked forward to hearing his voice. And that was dangerous. Very, very dangerous.
Lighting a dynamite fuse required only a spark.
"Wait a minute."
Darla turned from the door, and waited for Bette to continue.
"On second thought, you take the call. Tell him we'll have a replacement assistant in his office first thing tomorrow morning. And tell him, well, you know what to tell him. Then come back in and we'll have to adjust the schedule to free up Norma Schaff to go there for the rest of the week."
* * *
NORMA SCHAFF, IN her mid-fifties and razor-sharp of mind and wit, was made of sterner stuff than Janine.
At least Bette would have sworn to that before Norma Schaff faced Paul Monroe. She lasted two-and-a-half days.
To finish out the week, Bette tried a new approach, sending Jonathan Roiter. He finished out the day, which Darla termed a moral victory, and then said he'd rather swab toilets than go back Monday morning.
"Paul Monroe's on line three," Darla announced as she held open the door for Jonathan's departure. "And before you tell me to take this call, too, I think you should know that he said he wants to talk to you this time."
Bette stared at the phone a moment, then looked up at her assistant and friend. "I don't understand it, Darla."
"Me either, but I think the only way we're ever going to have a shot at understanding is if you get an explanation from him. You know the odd thing is, he's charming on the telephone. I wonder what he's doing to these people."
Bette waited until the door closed, took a deep breath that should have steadied her more than it did, then picked up the phone.
"Hello?"
"Hi, Bette. How are you? It's good to hear your voice. Have you had a nice week?"
Darla was right. He sounded charming. Pure irritation swept aside uncertainty.
"I've had an absolutely miserable week, as you well know since you are directly and solely responsible for it. What have you been doing to those people we send to your office?"
"Me? Nothing. I haven't laid a hand on a single one of them. Why?"
Nobody could sound that innocent and really be innocent.
"Why! Because we've had three of our best people come back this week - three people in one week! - saying they would never work for you again."
"Oh, that."
"Yes, that!"
"It's just that I've been feeling sort of crazy this week -"
"The feeling's mutual."
She knew he heard her, but he ignored it.
"But my feeling crazy's easy enough to fix."
"Oh, really. How do you suggest we fix it?"
No, no, no, Bette ! Her brain listened, aghast, at the opening her mouth had given him, and she braced to be run over by the Mack truck he would surely drive through it. She could have sworn th
e phone line hummed with his glee.
"Go out with me."
As Mack trucks went, that wasn't so bad. A mere four-ton - or four-word - model. But he didn't fool her. This truck was just the lead vehicle in a caravan. Because after going out, there would be talking and laughing, then holding hands, kissing in the moonlight, embracing in the dark and who knew what else.
Only she did know what else. Just the thought of it changed the pattern of her breathing and heartbeat. And that was the problem. If she went out with Paul Monroe, the man most likely to be named least likely to be her type of man, she could fall for him hard. More than she already had.
"No!"
"You don't have to shout."
She might have overdone the firmness, but "I didn't shout."
"Could have fooled me," he grumbled, and to her dismay she felt her lips quirk.
"No," she repeated, definitely not a shout, perhaps because the word was mostly aimed at herself.
"I heard you the first time." Something in his voice made Bette put a hand to her throat, made her want to take all the words back and erase that - was it pain? - from his voice. "All right, so you don't want to go out with me." Yes, I do want to go out with you, she thought, but I won't. I can't. "Then I guess you'll just have to send another temporary assistant Monday morning."
Whatever she'd heard in his voice had disappeared. His last words were almost cheerful. She swallowed, hard. "Yes, we'll send you another new assistant Monday morning."
"Fine."
"Fine."
"Have a nice weekend, Bette."
"You, too, Paul. Goodbye."
She hung up, but left her hand on the receiver. She knew she'd have an absolutely miserable weekend - for the same reason she'd had a miserable week.
* * *
SHE WASN'T EVEN surprised when Karen Van Ryland came in Tuesday at 11:30 and announced she wouldn't work for Paul Monroe.
Wedding Series Boxed Set (3 Books in 1) (The Wedding Series) Page 9
